DOCSLIB.ORG

View: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 3.1

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
View: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 3.1 Reassembling Ford Time is Money in Brian O’Nolan’s Brave New Ireland Andrew V. McFeaters Broward College Roger Burlingame’s Henry Ford (1957) is among the books maintained in Brian O’Nolan’s personal library at Boston College.1 It covers the length of Ford’s life: his lack of interest in becoming a farmer like his father, his stint in watch repair, and his rise as the automotive giant who challenged the manufacturing and marketing conventions of his time. Burlingame captures Ford’s breadth and depth of ambition, showing that Fordism was as much about social engineering as it was about automotive production. In short, Fordism was inseparable from the American dream. His book seems to emulate H. G. Wells’s popular Outline of History, which it mentions during its critique of Ford’s own complex attitudes toward history. Burlingame highlights Ford’s distrust of elitist history and his enthusiasm for practical history, the latter evidenced in Ford’s vast museum in Dearborn, Michigan: ‘His aim was to display the entire world sequences in agriculture, transportation, communication, and manufacture from the most primitive tools to the most advanced machines.’2 The museum captures a past that leads to an ineluctable future: Fordism. O’Nolan’s novels and columns evince an enduring interest in Henry Ford. Ford is overtly referenced in At Swim-Two-Birds and in the unfinished, posthumously published, Slattery’s Sago Saga. Ford appears several times in Cruiskeen Lawn, his colossal influence as a global harbinger of modernisation seeping through Myles na gCopaleen’s topical critiques. O’Nolan’s oeuvre as a whole, in spite of the gaps between his novelistic efforts, accrues a socio-political critique on the influences and consequences of modernisation, technology, and capitalism on Ireland’s political economy and cultural history. For O’Nolan, Ford occupies the vanguard of these changes. Myles discusses Ford’s influence in a 14 April 1947 issue of The Irish Times. This column is characteristically Mylesian, building satirical momentum through seemingly digressive side roads. He begins by concocting a connection between himself and Ford: they both have roots in County Cork. This topic detours into Myles’s complaint that he could not secure a job with the Ford Motor Company some years earlier, a subject which then reverses into a peripheral story about one of Myles’s The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 3.1. (Fall 2014) favourite characters, Keats, albeit without his friend, Chapman. In a historical anecdote, Keats, a sixteenth-century ‘soothsayer,’ prophesises to the Irish chieftain, Hugh O’Neill, that ‘There’s a Ford in [his] future.’3 Here ‘Ford’ refers to both the Battle of the Yellow Ford of 1598, in which the Irish defeated English forces, and to the Ford Motor Company’s advertising campaign, which, according to David L. Lewis’s The Public Image of Henry Ford, ‘became the immediate post-war era’s best-known automobile slogan.’4 This circular conflation between past, present, and future then drives home a more general discussion on the impact of Fordism on the modern world: Considerable as was Ford’s innovation in the sphere of transport, his technology had primarily a social impact. His assembly line method rationalised and completed the Industrial Revolution […], deluging every stratum of society with cheap utensils and machines eradicating a great amount of domestic drudgery and squalor, and with it the slave class it had created. At the same time, hope was created for the mechanisation of agriculture […]. A revolution in human living caused by abolishing the necessity for laboriously constructing individual articles is a revolution in time. In addition to showing how that could be done, Ford, with his Model T car, effected a companion revolution in space.5 Although Myles’s initial prognosis carries a utopian fervour that speaks to how material effects of technology transform social relations in the name of progress, not all his estimations of Ford are positive. He adds that Fordism paved the way for ‘fast- growing industrial jungles, ignorant money-sodden men assum[ing] demagogic roles, financial Frankensteins shoulder[ing] philosophers from pulpits, [and] newspapers [becoming] instruments for shaping the future rather than recording the present.’6 In the last section of the column, Myles discusses how only America could produce Ford, and he quotes large passages from Lee Strout White’s essay, ‘Farewell, My Lovely!’ which appeared in The New Yorker in 1936. The quoted passages eulogise the passing of Ford’s Model T, a way of life: ‘The driver of the old Model T was a man enthroned.’7 Anthony Cronin informs us in No Laughing Matter: The Life and Times of Flann O’Brien that O’Nolan purchased a Ford Anglia in around 1947, leaving behind his old Morris. O’Nolan was one among many post-war automotive consumers. As Cronin writes, ‘With the end of the war, petrol had become available again in Ireland and private cars were allowed back on the roads.’8 According to his account of O’Nolan’s driving skills, this might not have been the safest development for Ireland. On the economic upside, however, Ford production rebounded in Ireland after World War II. In Are You Still Below? The Ford Marina Plant, Cork 1917–1984, Miriam Nyhan details that ‘The second half of the century began in Cork with an optimistic start at Henry 43 The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 3.1. (Fall 2014) Ford & Son Limited. At 2.15pm on 18 July 1950, the longest serving employee, Bill O’Connell, drove the 75,000th vehicle built in Cork since 1932 off the assembly line’ and the ‘[unconvincing] production figures of 2,379 in 1946 paled beside those of 11,007 and 11,881 in 1949 and 1950 respectively.’9 After the global effects of the Great Depression, the economic war between Ireland and Britain, and the belt-tightening state policies of World War II, Ireland was back on the road to modernisation. The Cork plant was an essential component of Ireland’s economy, with a domestic and international market, producing cars, vans, and lorries along with its bread and butter, the Fordson tractor.10 Time and space were indeed going through a revolution. By the time At Swim-Two-Birds was published in 1939, Ford already had spread his utopian zeal to Ireland, having built the assembly plant in Cork in 1932, the foundry dating back to 1917. As in America, Ford was a harbinger of modernisation in Ireland, and there was no turning back. Fordism accelerated consumption-production relations, commodity standardisation, mechanisation, labour distribution, and urbanisation. Fordism changed the speed of life, affecting social behaviour through consumerist enculturation and material relations. While much of Ireland still matched its postcard depictions – a patchwork of green fields, farms, and villages – modernity, with a specifically American sheen, continued its advance on Ireland’s agrarian and cultural traditions. O’Nolan’s novels, early and late, represent ambivalent responses to Ireland’s split between tradition and modernity. The Gaels in An Béal Bocht are initially terrified of motor-cars: ‘When the first motor came in view, many paupers were terrified by it; they ran from it with sharp screams and hid among the rocks but issued forth again boldly when they saw there was no harm whatever in those new- fangled machines.’11 The interim between fear and assimilation is brief, reflecting Myles’s accelerated revolution in time and space. In At Swim-Two-Birds, the student narrator’s friend Brinsley remarks in an anachronistic gesture, ‘Slaveys […] were the Ford cars of humanity; they were created to a standard pattern of a hundred thousand’ and it is Trellis who manufactures human beings and who is later punished for exploitative practices.12 O’Nolan, Myles, and O’Brien’s shared vision of Fordism reveals the merging between humanity and technology in the Machine Age. Maebh Long’s Assembling Flann O’Brien explicates the compositional methods and polyphonic effects of pastiche in At Swim-Two-Birds, noting the novel’s resistance to hierarchical reading.13 These methods and effects of assembly, I would add, reflect O’Nolan’s purposeful confusion between human and technological production, garnering a socio-political critique of a modernising Ireland. In fact, O’Nolan’s preoccupations mirror widespread anxieties of the time. On 27 March 1937, one anonymous Irish Times contributor apocalyptically wrote in an essay titled ‘Man and the Machine’: 44 The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 3.1. (Fall 2014) It is said that the increasing use of machinery in industry will deprive the world of its craftsmen, and that the monotony of the machine-minder’s job will produce a race of robots […]. It is characteristic of the new industrialism that on one occasion Mr Henry Ford is reported to have said that for his industrial purposes the untrained man was preferable to the trained man, because he had less to unlearn.14 Here, as in O’Nolan’s writing, engineering and social engineering are inextricably linked in the imagination of the day. Ford was notorious for his vision of factory production as a well-oiled machine, segmenting labour into easily learnable and repeatable tasks – as if the collective of human labour could be perpetually improved like an engine itself. To this purpose, Ford also disregarded the line between private and public life within his factory cities, introducing policies to promote “moral” behaviour, such as abstention from alcohol consumption. Trellis practices similar managerial methods in At Swim-Two-Birds. In contradiction to the student narrator’s vision of the modern novel, which should avoid ‘despotic’ and ‘undemocratic’ writing, and which should support ‘a private life, self-determination and a decent standard of living,’ Trellis’s novel seeks to control the humans he manufactures, eliminating boozing and instilling ‘moral’ behaviour.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Moral Progress in the Light of History
    MORAL PROGRESS IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY. BY VICTOR S. YARROS. MLXri has been written lately about the imperative need of doing something in order that civilization may be saved or "salvaged." Humanity, we have been solemnly assured, is doomed, and our culture may perish, unless we accept this or that remedy for our social, economic and moral ills. It is scarely necessary to remind the reader of serious scientific literature dealing with social problems that the learned doctors dis- agree, as they have always disagreed in the past, concerning the nature and elements of the remedy required by the patient, civilized mankind. The patient would be deeply perplexed indeed were he, or it, to endeavor to follow the insistent advice of the physicians. How- ever, the latter do agree that humanity is sick unto death. They shake their grave heads pessimistically. They are most anxious and depressed. This mood of theirs does them credit, morally and emotionally speaking. They have the noblest of intentions. But are they justi- fied in their pessimism? Is the patient as sick as they believe he is? It is clear that an answer to these queries cannot be evolved out of one's inner consciousness. Freud and the subconscious cannot help us, either, to a sound, satisfactory answer. To find such an answer zve must go to history, to tJic human record. Has humanity been in better health than now? If so, when, and when did it con- tract its present dangerous malady? What has happened to it? Let us interrogate some one who has made an earnest and special study of our patient and knows the history of the case.
    [Show full text]
  • Ancient Rome on Wilson Barrett's
    “A LIVING HISTORY”: ANCIENT ROME ON WILSON BARRETT’S STAGE by Shoshana Hereld A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Theatre) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2017 © Shoshana Hereld, 2017 Abstract The toga dramas of late nineteenth-century British actor-manager Wilson Barrett provide important evidence on the relationship between the Classics and Victorian theater. In his depictions of ancient Rome, Barrett married the popularity of melodrama with the passion for classical antiquity, reflecting changes in the Victorian social world at the end of the nineteenth century: the increasing prominence of melodrama and the blurring of artistic genres; the increasing accessibility of classical knowledge; and obsessions with historicity. Drawing on scripts, contemporary reviews, and photographs, I investigate the ways in which Barrett’s work navigates the existing social scene in both theater and society at large. By exploring the splendor of Victorian melodrama, the British tastes for the Classics, and the relationship between authenticity and theatricality, this thesis uses Wilson Barrett’s work to demonstrate important features of both Victorian theater and society at large at the end of the nineteenth century. ii Lay Summary The toga dramas of late nineteenth-century British actor-manager Wilson Barrett provide important evidence on the relationship between the Classics and Victorian theater. Barrett is relatively unstudied, as compared to his contemporaries, such as Sir Henry Irving. Barrett’s depictions of ancient Rome, however, reflect both Victorian attitudes towards classical history and changes in British social structure.
    [Show full text]
  • The Ecumenical Movement and the Origins of the League Of
    IN SEARCH OF A GLOBAL, GODLY ORDER: THE ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT AND THE ORIGINS OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, 1908-1918 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Notre Dame in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by James M. Donahue __________________________ Mark A. Noll, Director Graduate Program in History Notre Dame, Indiana April 2015 © Copyright 2015 James M. Donahue IN SEARCH OF A GLOBAL, GODLY ORDER: THE ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT AND THE ORIGINS OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, 1908-1918 Abstract by James M. Donahue This dissertation traces the origins of the League of Nations movement during the First World War to a coalescent international network of ecumenical figures and Protestant politicians. Its primary focus rests on the World Alliance for International Friendship Through the Churches, an organization that drew Protestant social activists and ecumenical leaders from Europe and North America. The World Alliance officially began on August 1, 1914 in southern Germany to the sounds of the first shots of the war. Within the next three months, World Alliance members began League of Nations societies in Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain and the United States. The World Alliance then enlisted other Christian institutions in its campaign, such as the International Missionary Council, the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., the Blue Cross and the Student Volunteer Movement. Key figures include John Mott, Charles Macfarland, Adolf Deissmann, W. H. Dickinson, James Allen Baker, Nathan Söderblom, Andrew James M. Donahue Carnegie, Wilfred Monod, Prince Max von Baden and Lord Robert Cecil.
    [Show full text]
  • Sabiha Gökçen's 80-Year-Old Secret‖: Kemalist Nation
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO ―Sabiha Gökçen‘s 80-Year-Old Secret‖: Kemalist Nation Formation and the Ottoman Armenians A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Communication by Fatma Ulgen Committee in charge: Professor Robert Horwitz, Chair Professor Ivan Evans Professor Gary Fields Professor Daniel Hallin Professor Hasan Kayalı Copyright Fatma Ulgen, 2010 All rights reserved. The dissertation of Fatma Ulgen is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ Chair University of California, San Diego 2010 iii DEDICATION For my mother and father, without whom there would be no life, no love, no light, and for Hrant Dink (15 September 1954 - 19 January 2007 iv EPIGRAPH ―In the summertime, we would go on the roof…Sit there and look at the stars…You could reach the stars there…Over here, you can‘t.‖ Haydanus Peterson, a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, reminiscing about the old country [Moush, Turkey] in Fresno, California 72 years later. Courtesy of the Zoryan Institute Oral History Archive v TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page……………………………………………………………....
    [Show full text]
  • The New Global History Toward a Narrative for Pangaea Two
    EWE (previously EuS) 14(2003)1 Main Article / Hauptartikel 75 The New Global History Toward a Narrative for Pangaea Two Wolf Schäfer Summary: The author approaches contemporary history from a position that defines the expression “truly global” as earth-centered. On this ground, two kinds of global history can be distinguished: the non-linear geophysical history of first nature, which is alternately uniting and dividing the world-continent (called Pangaea One), and the revolutionary technoscientific history of second nature, which is beginning to defragment the earth with things like the World Wide Web. The new Global History explores contemporary global history in general and the emerging civilizational unity (called Pangaea Two) in particular. The new historiographical approach is introduced via a critical discussion of Globality, Globalization, Periodization, World History, and Methodology. Zusammenfassung: Der Autor nähert sich der Gegenwartsgeschichte von einer Position, die den Ausdruck “wahrhaft global” als erdzentriert definiert. Auf dieser Basis können zwei Arten von Globalgeschichte unterschieden werden: die nicht-lineare geophysikalische Geschichte der ersten Natur, die den Weltkontinent abwechselnd zusammenfügt und fragmentiert (Pangaea Eins genannt), und die revolutionäre technowissenschaftliche Geschichte der zweiten Natur, die angefangen hat die Erde mit Dingen wie dem World Wide Web zu defragmentieren. Die neue Globalgeschichte erforscht die globale Gegenwartsgeschichte im allgemeinen und die sich anbahnende zivilisatorische Einheit (Pangaea Zwei genannt) im besonderen. Der neue historiographische Ansatz wird anhand einer kritischen Diskussion von Globalität, Globalisierung, Periodisierung, Weltgeschichte und Methodologie vorgestellt. Overview ((3)) In this article, I shall be following an alternative tack to- ward global history. I think that the designation “new global history” is warranted by the novelty of a human-made global ((1)) Titles of the form “The New –” invite the tested response: history.
    [Show full text]
  • Economics, Politics and Philosophy
    ECONOMICS, POLITICS AND PHILOSOPHY Peter Harrington london We are exhibiting at these fairs 4–7 October 2018 frieze masters Regent’s Park, London frieze.com/fairs/frieze-masters 14–15 October seattle Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair Seattle Center Exhibition Hall Seattle, WA www.seattlebookfair.com 3–4 November chelsea Chelsea Old Town Hall Kings Road, London www.chelseabookfair.com 16–18 November boston Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair Hynes Convention Center Boston, MA bostonbookfair.com 30 November–2 December hong kong China in Print Hong Kong Maritime Museum www.chinainprint.com VAT no. gb 701 5578 50 Peter Harrington Limited. Registered office: WSM Services Limited, Connect House, 133–137 Alexandra Road, Wimbledon, London SW19 7JY. Registered in England and Wales No: 3609982 Coin illustrations from Ordonnance et instrvction, item 59. Design: Nigel Bents; Photography: Ruth Segarra. Peter Harrington london catalogue 146 ECONOMICS, POLITICS AND PHILOSOPHY All items from this catalogue are on display at Dover Street Dover St opening hours: 10am–7pm Monday–Friday; 10am–6pm Saturday mayfair chelsea Peter Harrington Peter Harrington 43 dover street 100 FulHam road london w1s 4FF london sw3 6Hs uk 020 3763 3220 uk 020 7591 0220 eu 00 44 20 3763 3220 eu 00 44 20 7591 0220 usa 011 44 20 3763 3220 www.peterharrington.co.uk usa 011 44 20 7591 0220 well-known to many of the key figures of the German Romantic movement, who often met each other at her Berlin salon: regulars included Friedrich Gentz, Motte Fouqué, Schlegel, Schelling, and Steffens. She was introduced to Goethe in 1795.
    [Show full text]
  • 13 SISFA.Pdf
    Raffaele Pisano • Danilo Capecchi • Anna Lukešová Editors Physics, Astronomy and Engineering. Critical Problems in the History of Science and Society 32nd International Congress of the Italian Society of Historians of Physics and Astronomy Roma 2012, Italy UDK 53(06) Ph-09 Pisano R, Capecchi D, Lukešová A (eds) (2013). Physics, Astronomy and Engineering. Critical Problems in the History of Science and Society. Proceedings of the 32nd International Congress of the Italian Society of Historians of Physics and Astronomy. The Scientia Socialis Press, Šiauliai. ISBN: 978-609-95513-0-2 ISBN 978-609-95219-3-0 © Scientia Socialis, UAB, 2013 Contents Foreword Chris Bissell (United Kingdom) i Introduction Raffaele Pisano (France), Danilo Capecchi (Italy) Anna Lukešová (Czech Republic) Editors xi Plenary Speakers An Outline of History of Mechanism Design in Servicing Science Marco Ceccarelli (Italy) 1 The Role Played by Mathematics during the Revolutionary and Imperial Paris up to the Restoration in the Education of Engineers with Lazare Carnot as a Witness Jean G. Dhombres (France) 11 Some Methodological Remarks on the Replication Method Peter Heering (Germany) 25 The Earth Floats Unsupported in Space Radim Kočandrle (Czech Republic) 39 Physics and Mathematics without Coordinates Walter Noll (United States of America) 53 Pisano R, Capecchi D, Lukešová A (eds) (2013). Physics, Astronomy and Engineering. Critical Problems in the History of Science and Society. Proceedings of the 32nd International Congress of the Italian Society of Historians of Physics
    [Show full text]
  • Flawed to Start : the Inconsequence of Action in the Novels of Brian Oâ
    Montclair State University Montclair State University Digital Commons Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects 5-2018 Flawed to Start : The nconsequeI nce of Action in the Novels of Brian O’Nolan Christopher M. Mitchell Montclair State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Mitchell, Christopher M., "Flawed to Start : The ncI onsequence of Action in the Novels of Brian O’Nolan" (2018). Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects. 145. https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/etd/145 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Montclair State University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects by an authorized administrator of Montclair State University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract Brian O’Nolan’s novels At Swim-Two-Birds, The Poor Mouth, and The Third Policeman present worlds where character actions are largely inconsequential. This discussion will focus on reflexive metanarrative elements, criticism of the Irish revivalist movements and authorship and creation as a means to survive these worlds. O’Nolan’s novels will be shown to be largely optimistic in their confrontation of nihilistic concerns. Much of his writing is comedic and playful even when dealing with serious topics. Repetition through both language and story structure are key components of the futility O’Nolan constructs for his characters and readers. This thesis examines the interplay between futility and creativity in O’Nolan’s works. FLAWED TO START: THE INCONSEQUENCE OF ACTION IN THE NOVELS OF BRIAN O’NOLAN A THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Master of Arts by CHRISTOPHER M.
    [Show full text]
  • (Cloth). Reviewed by Joseph Brooker, Birkbeck, University of London
    The Collected Letters of Flann O’Brien. Edited by Maebh Long. Victoria, TX: Dalkey Archive, 2018. Pp. 603 (cloth). Reviewed by Joseph Brooker, Birkbeck, University of London. Meanwhile I’m once again entering hospital for blood transfusions and other boons. With kind regards, Yours sincerely, These are the last words written by Flann O’Brien in this book, concluding a letter from 15 March 1966, two weeks before his death.1 No name or signature follows. The reason is mundane and material: many of the hundreds of letters in the volume are reproduced not from originals posted to recipients but from carbon copies retained by the author, and these contain his typewritten text but not the handwritten signature that he added before posting. Yet it is curious and poignant to see him disappear at the last from his own life story. With a blank space where his name might be, he is gone, after 557 frequently extraordinary pages. Few books have offered more Flann O’Brien. On the very first page of letters, an editor’s footnote records the Irish poet Donagh MacDonagh’s 1941 comment that Flann O’Brien was “a menace with a pen. Give him any book and he will sign it with any signature” (4, n.3). This is a neat bookend to the present book’s lack of any final signature, but more immediately may have responded to the author’s tendency to play games with other authors’ names, imagining a book-handling service which for a fee would insert fake annotations from Bernard Shaw or Joseph Conrad into one’s personal library.2 To talk of multiple signatures also invokes a question rarely avoidable in discussion of Flann O’Brien: his multiplication of names and, to an extent, authorial identities.
    [Show full text]
  • Pink Paper and the Composition of Flann O'brien's At-Swim-Two-Birds
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Master's Theses Graduate School 2002 Pink paper and the composition of Flann O'Brien's At-Swim-Two-Birds Samuel Kauffman Anderson Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Anderson, Samuel Kauffman, "Pink paper and the composition of Flann O'Brien's At-Swim-Two-Birds" (2002). LSU Master's Theses. 3989. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/3989 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Master's Theses by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. PINK PAPER AND THE COMPOSITION OF FLANN O’BRIEN’S AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in The Department of English by Samuel Anderson B.A., Louisiana State University, 2000 December 2002 “Tout texte se construit comme mosaïque de citations, tout texte est absorption et transformation d’un autre texte.” — Julia Kristeva “I proffered a wad of my precise transcript, bent in double, pink-tinted.” — AS2B TS1 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First I would like to thank the members of my thesis committee: Anne Coldiron, who got this whole thing started by making bibliography seem exciting, then loaned me her prodigious enthusiasm whenever I needed it; Lisi Oliver, with her quick sense of humor and mastery of all things ancient and Irish; Malcolm Richardson, who stepped in on very short notice and saved me from a self-inflicted scheduling disaster; and finally James Olney, who directed my research and assured me many times, in his gentle way, that my project was not as boring as it so often seemed.
    [Show full text]
  • Abstract Deconstructing Glimpses of World History
    ABSTRACT DECONSTRUCTING GLIMPSES OF WORLD HISTORY: AN ANALYSIS OF JAWAHARLAL NEHRU'S LETTERS TO HIS DAUGHTER by Michele L Langford This paper deconstructs Jawaharlal Nehru's extensive account of world history in the form of letters to his daughter, Indira. First published in 1934, Glimpses of World History remains an important resource in understanding the formative years of Nehru's perspective of world history and world politics. An analysis of Nehru's text contributes to growing field of scholarship concerned with the uses and approaches to world history. In addition, an analysis of influences on Nehru's construction of world history questions the traditional view that only British perspectives informed Nehru's ideas about the world. In conclusion, this paper suggests that Nehru's world history served as the premise to his key foreign policy initiative, nonalignment, once Nehru became prime minister of India in 1947. DECONSTRUCTING GLIMPSES OF WORLD HISTORY: AN ANALYSIS OF JAWAHARLAL NEHRU'S LETTERS TO HIS DAUGHTER A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of History by Michele L. Langford Miami University Oxford, OH 2005 Advisor_______________________________________________ Dr. Judith P. Zinsser Reader________________________________________________ Dr. David Fahey Reader________________________________________________ Dr. Arpana Sircar I. Introduction A close reading of Jawaharlal Nehru's Glimpses of World History reveals the complexities of constructing and using world history. Written while in prison for nonviolent protests against the British Raj between the years 1930 and 1934, Nehru's historical narrative retold his version of world history in the form of short letters to his daughter, Indira.
    [Show full text]
  • When China Rules the World
    When China Rules the World 803P_pre.indd i 5/5/09 16:50:52 803P_pre.indd ii 5/5/09 16:50:52 martin jacques When China Rules the World The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World ALLEN LANE an imprint of penguin books 803P_pre.indd iii 5/5/09 16:50:52 ALLEN LANE Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London wc2r orl, England Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada m4p 2y3 (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.) Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offi ces: 80 Strand, London wc2r orl, England www.penguin.com First published 2009 1 Copyright © Martin Jacques, 2009 The moral right of the author has been asserted All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book Typeset in 10.5/14pt Sabon by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Grangemouth, Stirlingshire Printed in England by XXX ISBN: 978–0–713–99254–0 www.greenpenguin.co.uk Penguin Books is committed to a sustainable future for our business, our readers and our planet.
    [Show full text]